


Getting a New Prescription

by Jay Auris (nighthawkms)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Brian accidentally (??) sets it off, Jimmy has a weird fetish, Jimmy shows off some talents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 17:57:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2159814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nighthawkms/pseuds/Jay%20Auris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jimmy considers a career change to ophthalmology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting a New Prescription

 

 

 

Jimmy wouldn't say he has a type. Sure, he has preferences as to who he'd like to date. He usually goes for blonds. He tends to prefer men a bit shorter than himself so he can rest his chin on the top of their head. He doesn't care much about whether someone is muscular or a bit flabby, there are benefits to both body types. Personality is always the key factor in deciding to date someone; he's dated enough assholes over the years to have some standards. No matter how pretty they might be, if they treat him like shit, they're not worth it.

But there is one thing he could call his weakness. The feature that will get him to practically swoon if he sees it.

Jimmy loves men who wear glasses. He will forgive most any other flaws as long as they’ve got a pair of bifocals on their nose. In the 80s, he drew little coke-bottle frame glasses on the models in mens’ fitness magazines. In the 90s, he kept a pair of thin oval frames in his dresser drawer, and asked his dates to put them on if he knew they wouldn't be weirded out by the request. Nowadays, he stops and stares a bit anytime any man wearing one of those thick rectangular frames walks by. He doesn't know where the obsession came from; it's not like any of his childhood crushes wore them, and his first love had 20/20 vision. It's just something he's accepted to be a little quirk of his preferences.

So when Brian walks into work on Monday morning wearing the exact style of glasses he's currently obsessed over (chunky rectangular frames, black, nose nibs built into the frame), Jimmy almost has a heart attack.

"What?" Brian asks, frowning at the way that Jimmy has frozen over his microscope, mouth hanging slightly open. "Were you expecting someone else? I told you I was kidding about hiring the stripper to come give you a lap dance in the lab."

"You- glasses?" Jimmy squeaks, trying to control his voice.

"Oh, these?" Brian points to his face and shrugs. "Lost my contacts over the weekend. I've got a new pair coming in on order, but it's going to take a few days."

"You wear _contacts_?"

Brian squints, adjusts the frames, and Jimmy audibly gulps. "I thought I told you that ages ago. I've got terrible vision, blind as a bat without them."

"Somehow it hasn't come up." Jimmy can't stop staring. It's not like he's never found Brian to be attractive, just not distractingly so. And this, this is so distracting. The frames draw attention to the deep sparkling blue of his eyes, and the sharpness of his cheekbones. Even his stubble, a feature that Jimmy usually dislikes in men, is somehow more appealing when framed by the glasses.

"Er, Jim? You okay there?"

"Yeah, I'm just going to take these samples down to the lab." He grabs the pile of slides he hasn't even finished looking at, hurrying past Brian without another word. He just needs to get out of there before he says or does something that will make him look even more awkward and pathetic.

He can only stay out of the lab for so long before it becomes suspicious. He idles in the bathroom, trying to come up with a plan. _Okay, I just won't look at him all day. I'll keep my eyes on the computer or the corpses or anywhere other than his face._ But that would look even more suspicious. He and Brian and Bev always spend the day cracking jokes, making faces at each other behind Crawford's back, and generally acting like children. The idea of going a whole day without looking at his coworker once seems... impossible.

_Maybe I can fake being sick_ , he thinks. But that would also be a problem. He'd have to call out for days, and what if he came back and Brian still didn't have his contacts?

An idea comes to mind. I have all that paperwork in backlog that I can take care of. Usually they all take a day every few weeks to slog through the mess of bureaucracy, but he can just say that he's worried he won't be able to do it all in one day. That way, he can hide out in the office and let Bev and Brian do their own thing in the lab.

As for tomorrow, well, he'll worry about that when it comes.

When he walks back into the lab, Bev is taking off her lab coat for some reason, and Brian has his back to the door, typing on the computer. "Morning," Bev calls, nodding to Jimmy with her usual half-tired morning smile. He'd estimate that she's about halfway through her coffee at this point. "Jack just called. We've got a crime scene."

Shit. His master plan has just been foiled.

"Damn," Jimmy says. "I was hoping for a quiet morning." He smiles wearily, trying not to show his panic. He's not very good at it though; Bev raises an eyebrow and looks like she wants to ask what's wrong.

"I'd better bring goggles," Brian says, turning around, and oh god, there's his face again, and there go Jimmy's hormones. Glasses are a good look for Brian, they make him look so... refined? Intellectual? Not like the hulking meat-head that he can come off as?

"Uh, why goggles?" Jimmy asks, clearing his throat.

Brian points to the glasses. "Need something to cover these to make sure they don't get any corpse goo on them."

 

~

 

Well, the goggles do certainly help dissuade Jimmy's wayward erection. As well as the fact that the corpse is, in fact, in goo form at this point. It smells awful, like a combination of rotten eggs, wet dog, and the leftovers you find in the fridge six months later.

"It looks like someone tried to dissolve the body in acid," Beverly says, squatting by the partially eaten away skull and picking fibers off with a pair of tweezers. "But the ground isn't damaged, so the body wasn't dissolved here. Just dumped, or rather, poured out."

"I'm pretty sure there are easier ways to make soup," Brian says, smirking up at Jimmy. He's also squatting, snapping pictures of the mess while Jimmy jots down notes about the state of the body at the scene.

"Thanks, Zee. I guess I won't be eating my lunch today." Jimmy shakes his head, moving to the next section of the body.

Jack walks over and stands near them, arms crossed, a thoughtful look on his face. "Human soup," he says, tapping a finger to his chin. "That's a new one."

Jimmy groans. "You too, with the soup metaphor?" He points to Brian when Jack quirks an eyebrow.

"Does this look like flesh to you?" Beverly motions to Jimmy, who squats down next to her. She's pointing to the teeth, which are flecked with little reddish pink bits between the molars. "It could be some of the dissolved material, but it looks more like this guy took a bite out of something before he went."

"I'll swab under the nails before we move the body," Jimmy says, standing back up. "If he was biting, he might also have been scratching."

Brian stands and wipes his brow, stripping off his gloves. "I need a break, I'm going to toss my breakfast if I don't get away from this smell." He's got a sheen of sweat on his face, the day is hot and the temperature isn't helping keep the odor at bay. Jimmy realizes he's staring. Brian's hand moves to pull off the goggles, and Jimmy quickly glances away. He listens to the sound of footsteps retreating - two sets, as Jack is walking away as well.

"What was that?" Bev is resting her arms on her knees, giving Jimmy a look of incredulity that he'd rather have avoided. "You've been giving Brian more attention than the body all morning."

"He had something in his teeth," Jimmy deadpans. "Was trying to decide whether it would be funnier to point it out and see him try to get it out without the use of his hands, or just let it sit there all morning."

"That is a lie." Beverly zips up an evidence bag and stands. "Something is going on and I'm going to find out what."

"Nothing is going on. Stop projecting your weird fantasies onto us."

Beverly frowns. "I didn't even mention-" Her eyes light up. "Wait, Jimmy-"

"Nope, not having this conversation," Jimmy says, beating a hasty retreat. "I'll get a body bag and drag Zeller back here. You have fun smelling that thing while you prep it for transport."

"Damn you, Price!" she calls after him, in a teasing, faux outraged voice. "This conversation isn't over!"

Unfortunately, Jimmy damn well knows that once Bev gets her claws into an idea, she'll never let it go. And he's never been able to fool her with any of his lies.

He rounds the side of the BAU van and almost runs straight into Brian, who's downing a water bottle like a man who hasn't had a drink in days. A bead of sweat runs its way down Brian's neck, sliding over his adam's apple as it bobs up and down. He finishes the bottle and adjusts his glasses with his thumb and forefinger, giving Jimmy a cheery smile. Jimmy realizes he's staring, again, and curses himself for being so easily swayed by a damn pair of bifocals.

"You left Bev with the body by herself?" Brian asks. "I thought you were more chivalrous than that, Price."

"You're the more likely knight in shining armor, Zee," Jimmy says. "Although I hear jousting is terribly hard when you can't properly see anything five feet in front of you."

Brian grins and tugs a cloth out of his pocket, removing the glasses to wipe them off. Without them, he should look just like regular old, annoying, pain-in-the-ass Zeller. But Jimmy's still fixed on his cheekbones, his stubble, his unnervingly blue eyes.

Something has changed.

_Oh no_ , Jimmy thinks. _I am much too old for this shit._

He has a _crush_.

  


~

 

Back at the BAU, they unload the body and start working on the dissection. There isn't enough Febreeze in the world to cover up the smell of a liquified corpse. Jack's not too hard pressed to make them rush the autopsy, so Jimmy actually gets to take a regular lunch, a rarity when they have a victim. He heads down to the building cafeteria, specifically avoiding the soup selection and grabbing a sandwich instead.

When he plops himself down into a seat, he finds he has a companion sitting across from him before he can even unwrap the damn sandwich.

"Hey there, Jim." Beverly smiles, lips curved up in a facsimile of sweetness. Jimmy knows that look. She wants something; usually it's information.

Jimmy sighs. "Can I at least get something in my stomach before we start the interrogation?" He finishes unwrapping the sandwich: roast beef and provolone. Not that he'll get to enjoy it.

Beverly reaches over and yanks the tray across the table, out of his reach. She places her own fountain drink on the corner of it. "We talk, then you eat. Talking with your mouth full is disgusting and gauche."

"What do you want?" Jimmy groans. "Why can't you let a poor old man eat his lunch?"

"I want to know why you're suddenly staring and swooning at Brian 'I-Chew-With-My-Mouth-Open-Because-I-Am-A-Man-Child' Zeller." Beverly squints and takes the unopened straw on the tray, poking Jimmy in the chest with it. "I thought we were definitely on the side of 'not interested?'"

"Who is this 'we?'" Jimmy grabs for the tray, misses. He tries for a cute, wounded look. "Bev, what good is having a functioning stomach if I can't use it? I'm sure that guy we have upstairs would love to still have use of his internal organs."

"Avoiding. The. Question."

"So what?" Jimmy manages to steal one of his fries back, but eating it just seems to make him more ravenous. "I don't tell you every-" She gives him an incredulous look. "Fine, I really need to stop telling you everything."

"Jim..."

"I _wasn't_ interested, okay?" He sighs again, sitting back in the chair and rubbing his forehead. "At least, I'm pretty sure I wasn't."

"And now?"

"Now... no, I can't. It's too embarrassing."

"Are you really worried about being embarrassed with _me_? After the stuff I've told you while drunk?"

"I never asked for that information," Jimmy says.

Beverly shakes her head. "No, but now you have it. So it's only fair if I hear something of yours."

"Fine... it's those damnable glasses. He looks so attractive in them and it's not fair, Bev." He winces; hearing himself out loud, it seems pretty stupid.

"His... glasses." Beverly stares at him for a minute, then, slowly, a rolling giggle begins to build in her voice. "Oh my- _glasses_ , Jim? Seriously?"

"I told you it was embarrassing." He scowls and folds his arms. "Can I have my food back now?"

She's still laughing, but she nods and shoves his tray back over. He immediately grabs the sandwich and bites into it, partially because he's seriously friggin' hungry and so he doesn't have to say anything else.

"I don't get it though," Beverly says, after she's finally calmed down. "They're just glasses. They don't make him look _that_ different... do they?"

Jimmy nods, swallowing his bite. "I kind of have a... thing. For guys in glasses. Always have. They're my... how would Zee put it, my kryptonite."

"Is... is it their rectangular shape? Are you hot for polygons?"

" _Jesu_ s, Bev, no! How does that even... I just find that they can make almost anyone look attractive."

Beverly shrugs. "Well it's your fetish. I won't try to understand it. So Zeller puts on a pair of bifocals and suddenly you want to get in his pants?"

"It's not that simple." Jimmy munches on a fry, trying to figure out how to explain. "I think I've been... unconsciously attracted to him? And the glasses just made it really hard to ignore. I don't know, I'm honestly grasping at straws here. I just know that he walked in this morning and I started wondering if it would be rude to ask him to wear tighter shirts."

Beverly snorts into her soda. "Please don't, even I would find that distracting and I find Zeller about as attractive as I find, well, you. No offense."

"None taken." Jimmy takes another bite of his sandwich. He wonders if maybe he's still asleep and this is all just a horrible dream. He pinches himself. Nope, no luck there.

"So... what are you going to do?" Beverly happily grabs some of his fries, and he might fuss if he hadn't done the same to her a thousand times.

Jimmy shrugs. "Do? Nothing. It's a stupid little crush that I'll likely be over by the end of the week."

"You mean when Brian gets his contacts back," Beverly says, grinning.

"End of the week," Jimmy repeats. She's still smiling in a way that says she doesn't believe him for an instant.

 

~

 

Whatever acid was used to dissolve the body is still highly reactive, they find during the autopsy. They have to use extra care when dissecting, they can't touch anything with their hands, even with gloves on, and they have to use non-reactive metal tools, containers, tables, everything.

Unfortunately, this is the day that the central air decides to crap out on them. They all groan when they hear something seizing in the vents, and a few minutes later, someone pops in to tell them that the cooling system has broken down. Pretty soon, they start to feel it, as the temperature in the building rises; it's almost a hundred outside, and the thermostat on the wall of the autopsy room creeps up and up and up... The corpse starts releasing lovely odors again.

"Just what we need," Beverly grumbles, grimacing as she gets a bad whiff of the body. "Zeller, you'd better finish this autopsy _fast._ "

"I'm moving as fast as I can!" Brian says, his voice muffled behind the mask he's wearing. "It's a little hard to document the status of all the internal organs when half of them aren't in solid form anymore."

Jimmy's on the other side of the room, focusing on getting prints from the hand that's no longer attached to the body. He's purposefully chosen this job so he has as little interaction with Brian as possible. He knows the glasses are still on Brian's face, he can practically _sense_ them. He's the Spiderman of vision impairment.

There's sweat starting to slide down the middle of his back, and he has to lean back once or twice to avoid dripping onto the prints. Finally, mercifully, the air comes back on, right as Brian shouts "done!" and Jimmy hears the clatter of tools on the metal autopsy table.

They store the body away, and Jimmy heads to the office to gather his things. He strips off his lab coat; there's a ring of sweat around his collar, god he hates the heat. He needs to go back to Toronto where it barely hits the 80s during the summer.

"Oy, Price, wanna hit the showers?"

Jimmy jumps; he hadn't heard Brian come in. "Since when do we have showers in this building?" he asks, carefully grabbing his duffel bag and rummaging through it. He does have a spare shirt, good.

He hears Brian walk over to his own desk. "The training academy has them in their dorms. You know we're allowed to use them, right?"

"I never have." Jimmy shrugs, finally turns to see Brian tossing his lab coat onto the desk chair. The glasses are still on his face, but Jimmy's managed to steel himself this time, and he's pretty sure he's kept his expression neutral.

"Well I'm not driving home like this," Brian says, wiping his forehead. "And we both probably need showers, I think I had about five people cover their noses when they passed me in the hall."

"We probably reek of the body," Jimmy acknowledges. "Yeah, I guess a shower couldn't hurt."

Brian grabs his duffel off the floor and hoists it over his shoulder. "Come on, I'll show you where they are."

They head out of the main building, over the the Academy quarters, where dozens of twenty-somethings are strolling out on the grass, trying to escape the heat of indoors. Brian ushers him through a pair of double doors, passing down a long hallway and swiping his card at the entrance gate. "You've worked here how much longer than me and you've never used these showers?" Brian asks, glancing back at him.

Jimmy shrugs, staring at the top of Brian's coif of hair, damp with sweat. "I tend to prefer taking care of hygiene matters at my own house," he says, trailing after the other man, as the reality of what he's agreed to starts to dawn on him. _I'm having enough trouble controlling myself around Brian while he's clothed, and now I'm going to be showering right next to him? What the hell were you thinking, Price?_

Blessedly, when they reach the bathing facilities, Jimmy finds that they have optional individual stalls connected to the locker room, which means he won't have to go into the large group shower room out of an 80s high school comedy like he was dreading. Brian tosses him a bottle of shampoo, and Jimmy quickly flees to the safety of the stalls as the other man starts removing his shirt.

He stands in the changing section of the stall for a second, listening to the sounds of Brian moving outside, clothes shuffling, and then he's padding away to the shower room. Damn young bastard, Jimmy thinks, stripping off his shirt. _Of course he doesn't care about showering with other men, he's got the body for it._ No, why is he thinking about Brian's body? He needs to stop this.

Finally, he's naked, and he steps into the shower portion, turning on the faucet and yelping when he's hit by a spray of cold water. Despite the heat it's a little too cold, so he turns the tap until the water turns lukewarm. He stands under the stream for a few minutes, sighing happily as the water cools his skin and washes the sweat down the drain. He drags his hands over his face and into his hair, then back down, across his shoulders, shivering when his fingers tickle the strands of hair on his chest. There's a stirring in his lower areas, and he blinks his eyes open, shaking his head in annoyance at himself.

When he pops the cap on the shampoo, he sniffs the opening and almost slips on the tile when the strong scent of Brian hits his nostrils. This is obviously the same stuff the other man uses normally, Jimmy's smelled it wafting past him whenever Brian walks by. It's familiar and comforting, and it's as if Brian's standing not two feet next to him in the stall. In fact, his cock decides that it very much likes that idea, and he curses himself as he looks down to find himself fully erect.

_This is all because of a pair of glasse_ s, he thinks miserably, groaning and resting back against the stall. _I'm such a sucker_. He can't take care of this here, especially when it's entirely caused by his coworker, because if he jerks off now, this stupid little crush will officially become a _thing_ , and there's no way in hell that's going to happen.

He puts the cap back on the bottle - smelling like Brian for hours will be no help to this situation. Instead, he runs the water cold, until he's shivering under the stream and his erection is wilting away. _There's something to be said for good old biology_ , he thinks, smirking and stepping out to towel off and change into fresh clothes.

When he steps out of the stall, there's no one else in the locker room. He shrugs his duffel back over his shoulder. "I'm heading out," he calls towards the shower room, hoping Brian hears him.

"Jim, wait!" There's a slap of footsteps on wet tile, and Brian emerges, dripping wet, wearing only a towel around his hips. His hair is damp and slicked back, water flicking off the tips of his curls, sliding down the long, flat planes of his toned chest. And those damned glasses are on his face, although they've fogged up from the heat of the shower. Brian removes them and wipes them on the towel as Jimmy tries not to have a heart attack. "Do you wanna grab dinner?" Brian asks. "My treat."

"Um, I, I can't," Jimmy stammers, taking a step back. "I just remembered, I've got a meeting tonight. Have to hurry off to it!" He knows he's babbling and probably speaking several octaves higher than usual.

"Meeting?" Brian asks, frowning and licking his lips in a manner that should be downright _illegal_. "What sort?"

Jimmy thinks fast. "Started going to AA again," he says, taking jerking steps back towards the door. It's a horrible thing to lie about, but he just. needs. to. escape. "Meeting is in half an hour, have to hurry over."

"Oh, um, you need someone to go with-"

"Nope, all good, see you!" Jimmy practically dives out the door, hating himself for the hurt look he sees on Brian's face as he leaves. Of course Brian would offer to go with him, to be his support system. And all Jimmy can do is think about how hot Brian looks in a pair of bifocals.

_He'd better get his contacts back soon_ , Jimmy thinks, hurrying down the hall. Except it might be too late. It's not about the glasses anymore... It's straight up Brian-centric lust.

 

~

 

Somehow he manages to get through the next few days without incident. They're too busy investigating the John Doe, who turns out to be some chemistry professor from VA Tech that got murdered by a jealous ex-lover and dissolved in his own chemistry lab, a basic open and shut murder case. The woman had confessed the moment they'd entered the home, it had obviously been a crime of passion, and the interesting body disposal method was just an outlier.

Jimmy's walking to his car at the end of the day when he hears jogging footsteps and someone calling his name. He turns and finds Brian hurrying after him. The man still has those damned glasses after four days, and it's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that every time Jimmy looks at him, he wants to pin the other man up against a wall and, well, do things. to him This little crush that was supposed to fade away seems to have only gotten stronger, and Jimmy's tired of having to spend more and more time in the bathroom, hiding in a stall to cool off. Brian keeps asking him if he's sick. Oh he's sick alright, sick in the head.

"Hey, wait up," Brian says, finally catching up to him, breathing a little hard. Jimmy had left without telling him, because Brian keeps asking him every evening if he wants to grab a bite to eat. It's not unusual to be asked, just unusual to be asked with such frequency. Jimmy doesn't think he can handle two hours alone with Brian right now, even in a public, neutral setting like a restaurant.

"What did you forget, Zee?" Jimmy asks, keeping his tone neutral and his eyes on the hood of the car. He pops the trunk and tosses his briefcase inside, pretending to rummage through things so he has a distraction.

"I have kind of a, well, a weird question to ask you."

Jimmy freezes. Oh shit, he's figured it out, hasn't he? He knows about Jimmy's crush and he's going to try and talk about it and talk about why he's flattered but doesn't feel the same way and-

"I need dance lessons."

"What?" Jimmy looks at him, and finds a serious expression. "Dance lessons, for what?"

"You know my sisters getting married soon, right?" Brian shoves his hands into his pockets, leaning against the side of the car. Jimmy wrinkles his nose and nudges him, closing the trunk. "Well, she's been a professional dancer for years now, actually makes a decent living at it. She wants to have a special dance with each of us at the wedding: me, my mom, my dad, her husband of course-"

"And you have two left feet," Jimmy finishes, matching the smirk that rises to Brian's lips. "So you want to practice."

"She knows I can barely stand up straight, so she asked me to just learn a basic waltz," Brian says.

"Why don't you ask Bev?" Jimmy asks. "She's a woman, and you'll need to learn how to lead."

Brian shrugs. "You're more my sister's height," he says, gaze floating up towards the sky, as if he can't look at Jimmy while asking this. "And I know you've got training from theater in college. Besides, Bev's almost as bad as me; she can crunk like nobody's business but I'm afraid of any her wayward knees coming anywhere near my groin." He grins at his own joke. Jimmy rolls his eyes.

"Is this what you've been trying to do for the last few days? Ply me with food so I'll be your dance partner?"

"What? No!" Brian looks incredulous. "She just told me about this last night! How is me asking you to grab dinner weird?"

"Nothing, never mind." Jimmy sighs and twirls his keys. "Fine. I would let you embarrass yourself but I like your sister too much to let you ruin her wedding." Brian punches him gently in the arm for that comment. "When do you want to do this?"

"Well, tomorrow's Friday," Brian says. "We could practice and then I'll buy you dinner for thanks. We're, ah, also going to need to use your house. I don't have enough floor space, but if we move the couches in your living room-"

"I got it, I got it," Jimmy says, waving him off. "Come over around five and bring the shoes you're going to wear to the wedding."

Brian gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Thanks, buddy, you're a lifesaver."

Jimmy watches him walk back into the building, and then gets into the car. He rests his hands on the steering wheel, and then smacks his forehead against it.

_Oh yeah, close body contact, this is going to work great_ , he thinks. _He's going to reach for my hip and end up with a handful of Jimmy Junior._

Well, he's had a good run without being labeled a pervert. It may be time to invest in a windowless van and grow a mustache.

 

~

 

Jimmy paces the floor at 4:55 PM, heels of his dance shoes tapping against the wooden floorboards. He's moved the couch and coffee table up against the wall, leaving a nicely sized floor space where they can practice. The black button-down shirt he's wearing is freshly pressed, as are the black slacks and red tie. Yes, he did dress up for this, it seemed... appropriate. The candles lit on the coffee table are also only there for ambiance. At least that's what he keeps telling himself. The lights are dimmed, also for the ambiance, and a 10cc song plays softly in the background on his stereo system.

He looks up at the clock: 4:57. Too late to call this off. He gulps down the last of the red wine he's been nursing for the last twenty minutes, liquid courage to hopefully get him through this session. Maybe it will also dull any sensations that might lead to unfortunate swelling.

The tie feels like it's choking him, but he leave it on - for once, he's going to be impressive, damn it. Not that he's trying to be impressive for anyone else but himself.

The doorbell rings, and he almost trips over himself trying to walk down the hall. _Which one of us has the two left feet again?_ he thinks, gripping the door knob. He takes a deep, determined breath, and opens it up.

Brian is waiting on the other side, dressed in a dark blue shirt, black slacks, and a black tie. He grins when he sees what Jimmy is wearing. "I guess we both had the same idea," he says, stepping into the house. He points to the floor. "These shoes are broken in already, so I'm used to walking in them. Dancing though, is another story."

Brian walks down the hall in front of him, and Jimmy feels himself about to break out on the edge of nervous sweats. _Calm down_ , he thinks. _This is your buddy, you're just going to- to get extremely close in a semi-compromising position. Nothing can go wrong._

When Brian steps into the living room, he looks at the candles and then back at Jimmy. "Ambiance," Jimmy says, stepping past him and into the middle of the floor. "Alright, did she give you any special directions? Any names of specific dance steps you need to learn?"

"Just that I need to learn how to waltz without breaking somebody's foot. Her words, exactly." Brian steps up in front of him, and Jimmy takes a silent, calming breath. "I think she's going to work out a routine with me before the wedding, so as long as I know the basic dance I should be able to do it."

"Well, not stepping on someone's foot is the first thing you should learn," Jimmy says. "Okay, we'll get you comfortable moving in time with someone first. Put your hands on my shoulders."

He starts them with something basic, just a back and forth movement, eyes on their feet, counting out the rhythm: _one two three one two three one two three_. Brian's only holding his shoulders, and that's not too uncommon, so it's not throwing Jimmy's focus. When they actually have to do the whole thing though... well, he'll climb that (swelling) mountain when he comes to it.

"Did you take dance before you did theater?" Brian asks, seemingly impressed with his grace as they move onto slow twirling. "It seems like something I could see you doing."

Jimmy shakes his head, smiling a little. "Parents never let me take a class, but I used to watch reruns of ballroom dancing on public television. A guy my age who could do any sort of dancing was an anomaly in the 70s, so the college theater troupe put me in charge of their routines for musicals. I had to research all these different types of moves and practice them and, well, it stuck." Brian gets this wide grin, and Jimmy can't help match it as the knot in his chest tightens.

"Lots of lonely hours in the library then?" Brian waggles his eyebrows. "Or did you ask some nice boy to help you with your 'research?'"

Jimmy chuckles and nods his head. His hands slide down from where they've been resting, halfway up Brian's chest, to his waist. Brian doesn't seem to react, doesn't comment, and Jimmy's grateful for it. "Nobody ever used the third floor of the building, so I spent a lot of time up there conducting 'research' that didn't involve any books." Brian laughs, smiling with his eyes, and making Jimmy's stomach flutter.

Brian comes to a sudden stop. "I think I've got the hang of spinning," he says. "Should we try it the correct way now?"

"Sure."

Okay, Jimmy can do this. He clasps Brian's right hand with his own, and guides his left hand back, around Jimmy's body, and Brian steps closer, and _oh shit oh shit-_

"Wait," Jimmy yelps, taking a step back. "I think I should take the lead first, show you how you need to move before you try it."

Brian looks confused, but he nods anyway. "Whatever you think, you're the expert."

This time, Jimmy leaves Brian's left hand on his shoulder, and places his own hand on the small of Brian's back. It's easier to handle touching than being touched, and even though his heart is racing, he can control how much bodily contact they have. This lets him put about half a foot of space between them - it's much too far, and Brian obviously notices this. "Are you sure it's supposed to be like this?" he asks.

"We're just testing it out, don't want you close enough to actually step on anything," Jimmy lies. Brian looks like he wants to say something, but he just shrugs, and Jimmy silently thanks him for it.

Jimmy guides him slowly, showing him how to take each step backwards or forwards. Except moving together at this distance is difficult, and they end up a mere two or three inches apart soon enough. Jimmy can feel the heat radiating from Brian's body, can smell that heavy richness that's a combination of Brian's shampoo and his own natural scent. The music is soothing, and the candles flicker dimly in the corner, and Brian's whispering something close to his ear. But Jimmy's not listening, he's just staring into Brian's eyes as the music swells and he knows at that moment that he's hopelessly lost for this man.

"Hey, Jim?" Brian pulls Jimmy out of his thoughts with a squeeze to his shoulder. "Why have you been avoiding me this week?"

"I- I haven't," Jimmy denies. "I've just been busy."

Brian's grip on Jimmy's shoulder tightens. "I looked up what time AA meetings were scheduled for on Monday," he says. "There weren't any going on when you said you were there."

Jimmy swallows as his mouth goes dry. He knows he's been caught. Somehow they're still twirling, the music is isolating them in their own little world, and he feels like he's in the middle of a John Hughes movie. "I can explain," he says weakly.

"You would tell me if you're in trouble, right?" Brian asks. "You know you can always tell me what's going on - I won't get mad, I promise."

"It's not that simple," Jimmy mumbles. "It's stupid and embarrassing." His legs beg to flee the scene, even as his arms grip tighter and pull them closer

Brian chuckles. "I'm sure it's not _that_ bad. What could be so bad that you can't tell your best friend?"

Jimmy stops moving, and Brian jerks to a halt in front of him, off-balance from the sudden stillness. Jimmy takes the opportunity to pull an old trick he learned in the shadier sections of those old dance books (the 70s were a weird era). He slides his left leg out and behind Brian's right one, nudging the back of Brian's right knee so he falls back into a dip. Brian gasps when he goes back, fingers digging into Jimmy's shoulder, but Jimmy's stronger than he looks, and the hand he has on Brian's back keeps them from both hitting the ground.

Brian looks up at him, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise. "Jim, why-"

Jimmy leans his head down and cuts Brian off with a soft kiss.

When he pulls back, Brian looks even more surprised, though not disgusted. It's a worryingly neutral expression. "Brian, you still with me?"

Brian cranes his neck up and returns the kiss, letting go of Jimmy's outstretched hand and putting his palm on the back of Jimmy's neck, deepening their lip lock. Jimmy finds himself straightening as Brian regains his balance, and they break apart standing chest to chest, with Jimmy now looking up at the taller man.

"So... ambiance?" Brian asks, glancing over at the candles and back to Jimmy with a delighted grin.

Jimmy bursts into laughter, wiping the moisture from his eyes. "I'm so good at bullshit, I even fool myself." When he can finally stop laughing, he smiles and reaches up, cupping Brian's face. "Come here, you..."

They stand there for a moment, trading soft, heady kisses in the glow of the candlelight. A sudden need overwhelms Jimmy's body, and he wraps his arms around Brian's waist, pressing them flush together.

Brian gasps against his mouth. "No, no wonder you were standing so far apart," he says. "I definitely would have noticed that pressing against my leg."

"I'd like to press it other places," Jimmy teases, sucking on Brian's lower lip and drawing a moan from his mouth. "Care to let me?"

"God yes, do whatever you want to me."

Jimmy pushes Brian back, all the way across the room, until his knees hit the edge of the couch and he drops down into a sit. Jimmy kneels, grunting when his knees hit the ground, but waving off Brian's proffered hand. The clasps to Brian's pants unhook easily, and Jimmy tugs them down, letting Brian's already engorged cock pop out into the cool air. The other man reaches for him, resting a hand on his shoulder and massaging circles into the crook of his neck. Jimmy moans happily and rubs his cheek against Brian's hand.

"You're a bastard, you know that?" Jimmy asks. He licks a stripe up the underside of Brian's cock, and Brian hisses in response. "Five days, five goddamn days having to watch you walk around the lab in those glasses..." He grasps under Brian's thighs, tugging them forward and apart so he can get a better angle. Jimmy wraps his lips around the head of Brian's cock and sucks. Brian's head drops back, and the fingers massaging Jimmy's shoulder turn into nails digging into the skin.

"I- I kind of have a confession to make," Brian gasps as Jimmy's tongue swirls across the tip. "I didn't lose my contacts." Jimmy freezes, looking up at Brian. "You remember that night you got, like, blackout drunk and I came over to make sure you were okay?"

Jimmy frowns, then takes another swipe of his tongue around the shaft. "Yeah, what about?"

"Well, well- _ahhhh_ , you might have told me about your obsession with glasses," Brian says as Jimmy continues to tease his cock. "I got curious, and I- ohhhh, I wanted to see how you'd react if I wore mine."

Jimmy leans back on his heels and rests his hands on Brian's knees. "So you haven't been waiting for your new ones to come in all week?"

Brian shakes his head, grinning nervously. "No... I could see that you hadn't been lying about the, um, the way you get overwhelmed, and I wanted to see if you would make a move."

"I knew there was a reason you were asking me to dinner every night." Jimmy smacks Brian on the thigh when he laughs triumphantly, and cuts Brian’s gloating off with a well applied pair of lips around his cock. Brian grasps Jimmy's hair in his hands and rides Jimmy's mouth. He pants and moans and makes such pleasing noises that Jimmy wishes to god that he had condoms in the house. Oh well, this will have to do for now.

So Brian's been playing him this whole week, and Jimmy had been just gullible enough to take the bait. Not that he minds right now, he's not going to complain about having a gorgeous, younger man's cock in his mouth. He's not that foolish. Still, as he thinks about Brian's actions and words from the last week, a light bulb goes off in his head. He pulls his mouth off of Brian's cock, and the other man whimpers pathetically. "Why- why did you stop?"

"Your sister told me two years ago that she never wanted to have a traditional wedding," Jimmy says, drumming his fingers on Brian's thigh and raising an eyebrow. "In fact, she specifically said she wanted to elope."

"How do you remember all these things?!" Brian's mouth is hanging open. "Shit, I thought that was a pretty good story."

Jimmy stares at him, then starts laughing. "Oh, you have been a bad boy, Brian, haven't you?" A wicked grin comes to his face, and Brian looks a bit pale. "But you forgot one important thing. _Nobody plays Jimmy Price and gets away with it._ "

"Um, what does that- _ohhh shit_!" Brian groans as Jimmy reapplies his mouth to Brian's cock. "I, I don't like the sound of that..."

After that, they stop talking. Jimmy grips Brian's thighs and applies every single technique he's ever learned about sucking cock, and soon he has the other man shivering and whimpering and twisting under his control. He loves the way Brian's lips part a little wider every time Jimmy swipes his tongue around the head, or licks a line down the shaft. The younger man is so sensitive and easy to stimulate, and Jimmy can't wait to test out what he's capable of. But for now, punishment.

Jimmy's had enough experience to be able to know when a guy he's sucking off is about to come. So when Brian gets that familial tremor, the vibration in his muscles that signals an oncoming orgasm, Jimmy immediately stops sucking, sitting back on his heels and smiling pleasantly up at Brian.

"Wh-what are you-" Brian gasps, blinking his eyes open and looking down at him with desperate, needy eyes. "Why did you stop?"

"I told you," Jimmy says, his grip firmly on Brian's legs so he can't move them. "Nobody plays me and gets away with it."

Brian blushes a red color, and opens his mouth to say something. But Jimmy's determined that he's backed down from an orgasm, so Jimmy reapplies his mouth to the neglected cock. Brian moans, hips twitching up and down, and Jimmy hopes he's starting to realize what he's in for.

The second time Jimmy denies his orgasm, Brian curses at him, and Brian's hips try to follow his mouth as it moves away. " _Jimmy_ ," Brian whines, hands gripping the couch cushions. A bead of sweat slides down his forehead. "P-Please, this is _torture_."

Jimmy snorts, pressing a kiss to the inside of Brian's thigh and watching him shiver. "You deserve it for the shit you put me through this week."

"But, but if I hadn't done all those things, this wouldn't be happening!" Brian gasps.

"You enjoyed messing with me, and you know it." Jimmy smirks and reaches up, grabbing the end of Brian's tie and tugging his head down. "So you're going to sit there and take your punishment, Zeller."

Brian whimpers, and Jimmy smirks, and he begins the cycle again.

By the fifth time that Brian is closing in on an orgasm, Jimmy thinks he's finally had enough, so instead of removing his mouth, Jimmy starts swiping his tongue up and down the large vein on the underside of the shaft in a rapid motion. Brian keens and bucks, only held down by the grip of Jimmy's hands. "Oh god, Jim," Brian pants. "Oh _god_ , I'm, I'm- _ahhh_!"

Brian tenses under Jimmy's grip, and comes in a stuttering spurt. Jimmy swallows quickly around his cock, getting every last bit of his seed, and then sits back on his heels, flicking open the button of his own pants and plunging his hand inside. It doesn't take more than a few strokes before he's coming inside his boxers, head tilted back and panting as Brian's eyes stay locked on him.

"J- _Jesus_ , Jimmy." Brian reaches down and tugs him up onto the couch, wrapping his arms around Jimmy's waist and tucking him against his chest in a possessive manner. Jimmy sighs, smiling into his chest, a week's worth of stress finally fading from his body.

"I want you to lose those contacts for real," Jimmy says when he can speak again. Brian laughs and kisses his forehead. Jimmy decides that, just this once, he doesn't mind Brian getting the upper hand.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The 10cc song Jimmy was listening to is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdCY0CgMoq8
> 
> This is probably the dumbest premise I've ever written a fic by xD This is my fic for the Summer of Rare Pairs challenge, if you want to read more Rare Pairs fic or see some art, go to hannibalsummerrarepairs.tumblr.com!
> 
> Thanks to Gina (jimprices.tumblr.com) for beta'ing!
> 
> Find me on tumblr or twitter @nighthawkms for more Preller, Hannibal fandom insanity, and other nonsense!


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